GUN FREE CITY: Young Woman Dies On Phone Call With Father After Stray Bullet Meant For Cops Hits Her In Head

An absolutely heartbreaking story. Proving once again, that “Gun-free zones”don’t apply to criminals…

A father was on the phone with his daughter when suddenly a stray bullet hit her in the head.

Aaren O’Connor, 25, was sitting in her car Friday in Chicago talking with her dad on the phone. Her father, David O’Connor, could tell something was wrong, but he had no idea that his daughter had actually been hit by a stray bullet, CBS Chicago reports.

“She was having trouble speaking,” David told The Chicago Tribune. “She didn’t know where she was. She kept saying her head hurts, her head hurts. I thought maybe she was having a stroke or something.”

David was able to get Aaren’s friends to check on her. Her roommate found her with a gunshot wound to the head and rushed her to the hospital. Aaren was declared brain dead Sunday, and doctors harvested her organs. Police say the shot was likely fired from a suspect they were chasing. The suspect allegedly turned to fire off shots at police, but a stray hit Aaren.

“I didn’t realize at the time but I was just having the last conversation with my daughter,” David told CBS Chicago.

One of Aaren’s former coworkers started a GoFundMe page to pay for funeral expenses and create a scholarship fund. The page had raised about $29,000 at the time of publication.

“Aaren was a beautiful 25 year-old woman who was intelligent, compassionate, caring, and hardworking with a deep love for her friends and family,” the page reads. “She had a great sense of humor, love for adventure and a take charge personality. By simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time the world lost an amazing person and all of her potential.”

Chicago had 272 gunshot victims and 51 homicides in January, the highest total for the winter month in 16 years. In fact, the rate is so high, there are nearly two murders a day. While in 2015, the city had 29 homicides for the same month, and in 2014 there were 20 murders — the total has more than doubled in two years.